


Escaping To Home

by Eternal Scribe (Shadowcat)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-16 01:46:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5808589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcat/pseuds/Eternal%20Scribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leia wasn’t one known for being able to find ways to escape her pain like most people did. But this was a pain she had been living with that had been far too hard not to try to escape.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Escaping To Home

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "Escape" prompt at [Star Wars Flash Meme](http://starwarsflashmeme.dreamwidth.org/)

Leia wasn’t one known for being able to find ways to escape her pain like most people did. But this was a pain she had been living with that had been far too hard not to try to escape.

Her son, her beloved son, Ben, had shattered everyone’s dreams by going -- falling -- to the dark side. Everyone knew that his actions had broken Luke, but no one really seemed to give much thought about what it would do and had done to her; his mother that had loved him and guided him to the right path for as long as she had been able to be with him. Her beautiful boy that everyone had had such high hopes for when he was born.

The day he fell into the Dark Side was the day that she watched herself lose everyone she loved. Her son was gone, enveloped by the First Order. Luke disappeared, his heart broken by Ben and everything he had done before he left. And Han...

And Han had taken Chewbacca and disappeared into space to deal with his grief in the only way that he had ever known how to.

They all left and went into different explosions to cope, but there was no escape for her. She had to stay back and be the General that her people needed her to be. With the new threat of the First Order and her Jedi son being a powerful Sith now, General Organa was needed to be the tactician and the hero of battles as she had been when she was in her twenties.

She had known that Han was on that planet even before the ships set down to add assistance after the attack of the First Order. That was one thing that had changed, she used the Force for some things and carefully ignored it for other things. (If her mind was calm and clear, the Force was her friend. If she was heartbroken and angry, she carefully locked that part of herself away. She now knew what she was capable of after all of these years and she would not risk everything she loved and was by reacting instead of thinking.)

Even if people didn’t need help, she would have been there; been there to see her wayward husband; been there to finally bring him home.

She was tired when she saw all of the destruction, but seeing that Han was there and unharmed gave her a brief respite from the weight that she usually carried on her shoulders. She did her duty to her people, acted as the General in the meeting and then she led Han to what had always been their private quarters on her ship.

They hadn’t been there together and relaxed in far too long and there was no avoiding the memories and the feelings that had been created and shared here and which the walls had absorbed over the years when they would spend time here whenever they would get a free moment.

“Are you coming home for real this time, Han?” Leia’s voice was more tired than he remembered it to be, but it was still full of love and that tone that had always slipped in just for him. “No more trying to escape from everything into the stars?”

Han pulled her close and rested his chin on her head. “What about you, my General? Are you done trying to escape your pain by focusing your skills on tactics and planetary battles?”

Leia sighed softly, wrapping her arms around him and getting more comfortable against his chest. “There’s really never been any real escape for us no matter what we’ve tried, has there? You went back to smuggling and I went back to focusing on ships and battles against any enemy that our scouts found.”

“No one ever said our coping skills were top notch,” Han said teasingly into her hair. “When we get hurt, we go back to what we know.”

She nodded. “But it doesn’t mean anything when we’re apart, Han. We both lost a son. There was no reason that we should lose each other, as well.” She sighed. “I was so afraid of seeing blame in your eyes since it was my decision to send him to train with Luke --”

Han wrapped his hand around her chin and lifted it so that he could look into her eyes. “What happened with Ben was not something that I ever blamed you for. I thought that you would blame me for not being a better father.”

“I always thought you were a great father, Han. You reminded me of Bail many times.”

“Your father that you lost when Alderaan was destroyed?”

Leia nodded. She knew that Anakin was her true father and that he had saved Luke’s life and tried to come back to the light, but in her heart of hearts, Bail Organa was always going to be her real father. “You balanced so many things in great ways when we were raising Ben,” she said softly. “I don’t know what caused his fall, but I do know that it wasn’t us. We did the best we could, just like any other parents in the galaxy would do. We loved him unconditionally and were there to guide him every time that he needed us to be there.” She looked into his eyes again. “Blame does no one any good and all it does is cause pain that shouldn’t be there in the first place. It makes us doubt everything even more.”

“Does it make you doubt me, Leia?”

“No. It has never made me doubt you.” She gave him a small smile. “Stay, Han. Come home and stay where you belong.”

“Is that an order, General?”

“It’s a request of a wife that misses her husband and her other half.”

“Then I’ll stay.”

Leia smiled and let Han tilt her chin up again so that he could seal his promise with a kiss. It was one of those kisses that had always robbed her of her breath and sent all of her thoughts spinning away into some other place.

Sometimes, it wasn’t about trying to escape your pain, but knowing when it was time to find a new place to escape to. In Leia’s heart, home was always the right and best place to escape to.

She could deal with that kind of escape happening for them.


End file.
